Letter to the editor: Boyda’s column misdirected

First, it is not "Big Oil and the White House" (as if they're one and the same) driving higher fuel prices. This is a typical liberal talking point. Corporations are the building blocks that established the free enterprise system that Ms. Boyda and millions of others enjoy in the U.S. today.

This is one of the fundamental differences between liberal and conservative. Conservatives believe individuals empowered by a free enterprise system with less government interference are the answer to most problems. Liberals believe government is the answer to all problems. Soaring fuel prices are the result of years of liberal policies that drown entrepreneurs in regulation and taxation, as well as increased demand worldwide.

Ms. Boyda says "we cannot drill our way out of this mess." That's a good sound byte, but there's one problem.

It's simply not true.

According to Mark Hemingway in the National Review, oil drilling can now come online much faster than the 15 years that is the standard talking point of liberals opposed to drilling. If, for example, the coastal plain area of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) was opened to drilling, it has the potential to yield 16 billion barrels of oil. This is equivalent to 30 years of Middle East imports. These figures come from the anwr.org website. This area comprises only 2,000 acres of the 20-million-acre refuge, but oil production in the area has been continually blocked by liberal votes. It seems to me that 30 years would be enough time to develop other sources of energy.

Ms. Boyda has a lot of cliches, but not much substance to what she says.